A little bit ago I bought Mboya a used cell phone on eBay....well actually I'm not sure how used it was because it was still in the package, but the important thing was that is was unlocked and a quadraband, all necessary for phone use in Kenya.
When he received it he sent this heart-felt email that said(I love how he has adopted my spastic email style of all caps for emphasis!):
JAM BO ALLISON
Thank GOD its very nice to receive your email this morning, and guess what? i just got the phone yesterday, its really receiving network very clear which is my exiting to me. i really appreciate so much and its now time to get to calls and find job s without spending so much bus-fare, i cant imagine how chip (cheap) is going to cost me without travel ling around searching for a job!! You cant imagine how things will be easy for me!! thank you, thank you, thank you, so much RAFIKI YANGU.
It hit me: with the little extra money I sent him with his sister's school payments he paid the rent on his parents farm and then budgeted out 3 months worth of bus fare. Oh.My.God. We take so much for granted here. I prayed that this phone would make a difference to him, quite fervently too.
Today I received this:
HI THERE
Hope you are alright rafiki yangu !! how is your life treating you? hope you are OK ?!! well iam very much alright and the rest of the family, the good news is that just got anew job with a international project from one of east African countries that deals with road construction, they just started early this year but i just joint them in the last three weeks , its a project for three years but i really not sure how long i will be working for them, only that i will keep my fingers closed and hope they will reconsider me for sometime,wish me the best........,well my family is very happy for me,also they told me if i write to you to say BIG hollow to you especially my sister;she is really doing well with school work, last term she got grade B incompaination (combination) of all subject.and hope she can even do more better, wish her the best.
Please hope that you are alright,and keep in touch, wish the best write you soon my rafiki.
Mboya has a JOB and Mumbua has a B average (which makes me swell with pride, given her constant state of not knowing, just hoping I'd come through with the money). I am so proud of them both and I am hoping with all my heart that life will be better for the whole family now. I'm not so delusional as to think that all of their problems are gone, BUT I do know that Mboya's savings account remains and will remain, and that a small portion of my salary will still be put in each week just in case emergency money is ever needed. Right now, I'm just savoring the happy news. You CAN help another person, you CAN....and usually when you help one, you inevitably help another and another. Hell, Mumbua might be a future Nobel Peace Prize winner for all I know. I could've just saved the whole damn world ;) Imagine if everyone on this planet vowed to help one person, one single person. We'd be unstoppable.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Your Human Heart aka the line which after reading, melted my heart to a pile of mushy goo
Geuss what ? everything went OK i received the cash without no shida (Swahili for problem) thank you so much for your human heart,i don't how much i really appreciate cause i always feel that i ow you something" anyways God bless you so
much
REMINDER, please if you are sending the phone ; please don't indicate the VALUE that means how much you bought it cause the post-office will charge me a lot money according to the cost. so the best way describe as agift and used phone if possible. thanks and have a beautiful weekend bye for now dada yangu.
much
REMINDER, please if you are sending the phone ; please don't indicate the VALUE that means how much you bought it cause the post-office will charge me a lot money according to the cost. so the best way describe as agift and used phone if possible. thanks and have a beautiful weekend bye for now dada yangu.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
School Supplies and an update
Hello friends,
I've heard from Mboya here and there over the last few months. He still searches for a job. I feel terrible for him because he's a good person and a hard worker with 16 years work experience with one company. Though it may be hard to come by jobs in the US, I truly believe a man such as him with his determination and desperation for employment would not have languished jobless for so long (over a year now).
I want to help his family out in more ways than just sending him money (I send him extra money to pay his bills with school payments because I know cash is a struggle to come by). This is a delicate issue though. Much like people who are unemployed here, a lot of people don't want a handout or they feel like there is always someone who is worse off than they are, so they should be helped first. While I know this is the case with Mboya and his family, these are the people I know personally, and I want to do more for them. My dream would be to find a job for Mboya, naturally, but I'm not sure this is realistic, plus I wouldn't even know where to begin. I asked another friend, Maraka, who had the good sense to leave SFS before being let go, if he was in a position to offer Mboya a job, but unfortunately, he is not. Of course the phone I sent Mboya doesn't work either. If my cell phone contract ends soon, I am going to send him my razr phone. If not, I'm going to look for a quadraband on eBay, because those should absolutely work with safaricom in Kenya.
For now though, I'm continuing to pay Mumbua's school fees, and send things her once in a while. Recently I sent a 7.4 lb box of school supplies, complete with binders, pencils, pens, pencil sharpener, notebooks, pencil case, colored pencils, a makeup bag with nail polish (the Kenyan girls at the secondary school near SFS were always coveting my nail polish) and soap and a washcloth, because a girl needs a little luxury once in a while, no matter how small. Hopefully she liked them, and that the school supplies will be useful, though I have the feeling that she definitely will use the 100 pencils my sister gave her, LOL.
As for the next round of school fees, I thought they were due this month, but now I am thinking that the month of April is an off month for schools, and that fees are due at the restart of the semester in May, which is great for me because my Mboya fund has time to earn interest. The generosity of my bookclub paid for an entire semester - but the great thing was is that I didn't collect the money until after I sent January's school fee, so I have over $200 in the bank, just for Mboya and Mumbua, which is absolutely delightful. While so many people have been so generous in donating, such as bookclub, Rachel, and my sister, as well as many other friends and family, I hate asking people for money. While it's going to what I believe is a great cause, it's not going in a non-profit organization's bank account, and people donate based on trust alone. While (obviously) I put every penny where I say it's going, I can't help but wonder if people ever think I'm running some shady scheme.....I'm not! Nevertheless, I am relieved that I won't have to solicit donations this time around, and maybe never again, now that my car is paid off!!!
Well that's the update from me. As always, thanks for your interest and your reading!
Love
Allison
I've heard from Mboya here and there over the last few months. He still searches for a job. I feel terrible for him because he's a good person and a hard worker with 16 years work experience with one company. Though it may be hard to come by jobs in the US, I truly believe a man such as him with his determination and desperation for employment would not have languished jobless for so long (over a year now).
I want to help his family out in more ways than just sending him money (I send him extra money to pay his bills with school payments because I know cash is a struggle to come by). This is a delicate issue though. Much like people who are unemployed here, a lot of people don't want a handout or they feel like there is always someone who is worse off than they are, so they should be helped first. While I know this is the case with Mboya and his family, these are the people I know personally, and I want to do more for them. My dream would be to find a job for Mboya, naturally, but I'm not sure this is realistic, plus I wouldn't even know where to begin. I asked another friend, Maraka, who had the good sense to leave SFS before being let go, if he was in a position to offer Mboya a job, but unfortunately, he is not. Of course the phone I sent Mboya doesn't work either. If my cell phone contract ends soon, I am going to send him my razr phone. If not, I'm going to look for a quadraband on eBay, because those should absolutely work with safaricom in Kenya.
For now though, I'm continuing to pay Mumbua's school fees, and send things her once in a while. Recently I sent a 7.4 lb box of school supplies, complete with binders, pencils, pens, pencil sharpener, notebooks, pencil case, colored pencils, a makeup bag with nail polish (the Kenyan girls at the secondary school near SFS were always coveting my nail polish) and soap and a washcloth, because a girl needs a little luxury once in a while, no matter how small. Hopefully she liked them, and that the school supplies will be useful, though I have the feeling that she definitely will use the 100 pencils my sister gave her, LOL.
As for the next round of school fees, I thought they were due this month, but now I am thinking that the month of April is an off month for schools, and that fees are due at the restart of the semester in May, which is great for me because my Mboya fund has time to earn interest. The generosity of my bookclub paid for an entire semester - but the great thing was is that I didn't collect the money until after I sent January's school fee, so I have over $200 in the bank, just for Mboya and Mumbua, which is absolutely delightful. While so many people have been so generous in donating, such as bookclub, Rachel, and my sister, as well as many other friends and family, I hate asking people for money. While it's going to what I believe is a great cause, it's not going in a non-profit organization's bank account, and people donate based on trust alone. While (obviously) I put every penny where I say it's going, I can't help but wonder if people ever think I'm running some shady scheme.....I'm not! Nevertheless, I am relieved that I won't have to solicit donations this time around, and maybe never again, now that my car is paid off!!!
Well that's the update from me. As always, thanks for your interest and your reading!
Love
Allison
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The latest update
Well thank you to everyone who donated this semester! I sent Mboya $215 on January 5th, and when I had my book club meeting the next week I collected even more donations! I believe we'll only need $10-20 next semester to cover tuition - maybe I'll give everyone a break and cover that myself. Thanks again everyone. As always, your thoughtfulness is appreciated by Mboya:
Well i have no much to point out but we still remain in touch,and please tell Rachel i can't wait to hear from her. wish you the best, take care talk soon.Bye
Hopefully I'll be adding more to this site soon. I am trying to find a way to send Mboya a disposable camera he can use to take pictures of his family and home. There are film developing services in Nairobi, so that's not a problem, the trick is getting either the camera or the prints back to the states because postage = MONEY, as always. Actually, you have to pay to pick up any packages that cannot fit in your tiny post office box, so the school supplies I'm sending Mumbua will have to be divided in several large manila envelopes that might be able to sneak their way into the School for Field Studies PO Box (SFS allows Mboya to receive his mail via their box, which is nice of them, as Mboya probably doesn't have a box of his own and anything sent general delivery to Nairobi would certainly get lost in the shuffle. Or stolen, I hate to say).
Also, the phone to which he is referring in the above email is an old LG phone I had. I got to upgrade when I went to Africa because the local Cingular guy was very curious to see if their phones would work from Kenya - no one had ever tried! They gave me a "razr" to use, as they couldn't put international calling on my old LG. In the end I got to keep the razr, which worked like a champ throughout rural Kenya (I don't think they wanted it back because it was a bit dusty, but I'm not complaining!) but I never had to turn in the old LG. I thought that it might help Mboya to have a phone for his job hunt. It's much easier than just showing up at a company and asking if they have job openings, plus you can respond to classifieds much easier. I had the LG "unlocked" by a California-based travel company. I guess (and forgive me for my non-technical explanation) most American cell phones are "locked." This means that you can't necessarily take your cell phone to another country and put a SIM card from a local cell agency in your phone and expect it to work. It might, but it might not, because some cell phone companies have "locked" their phones - they've programmed them to work with only SIM cards issued by their own company. STINGY! (this website explains it better)
I sent Mboya my phone right after I heard he lost his job - of course it was LOCKED! He used his head though and gave it to an SFS student to take home and mail from her house. That's what I love about SFS Kenya kids - they'll do stuff like that for you!!! Same with the professors - when my wildlife management professor visited Boston in 2003 I gave him about a dozen gifts for various staff members and he brought them back to Kenya for me! Argh, I'm rambling. Ok, so I got the phone back, did a little internet research, and found a company that would unlock my phone. Then I had to research the company :) Long and short of it, the old LG was unlocked and sent back to Kenya, Mboya got together the money he needed to fetch it, and now it's still giving him trouble. I think the trouble has to do with Safari.com, the Kenyan cell service, and the fact that they are accustomed to Nokias and probably haven't seen too many LG flip phones yet, but I'm sure they'll work it out in the end.
Well that's it from me. Thank you everyone for your donations. You're wonderful!
Allison
 | Joseph Mboya Musau |
| show details | Jan 11 |
Hi ALLISON
Thanks so much that every thing went quit well, otherwise i got all the details as you had sent them,at the same time i fill very sorry for want happened to you with your UNTIE (Auntie - she passed away at the ripe old age of 95 last week) , I have no much to say but my condoles to the whole family and friends.
Anyway in case you want to sent the school stuff just sent them as you had sent the PHONE i received it with no problem use the same address then indicate my name.The only thing is the PHONE status is kind of not working very well but the SAFARI.COM is trying to work on it. in that case if you have any details about it please you can assist maybe from the person who was working
on it, cause the problem remains the network as they told me.Well i have no much to point out but we still remain in touch,and please tell Rachel i can't wait to hear from her. wish you the best, take care talk soon.Bye
Hopefully I'll be adding more to this site soon. I am trying to find a way to send Mboya a disposable camera he can use to take pictures of his family and home. There are film developing services in Nairobi, so that's not a problem, the trick is getting either the camera or the prints back to the states because postage = MONEY, as always. Actually, you have to pay to pick up any packages that cannot fit in your tiny post office box, so the school supplies I'm sending Mumbua will have to be divided in several large manila envelopes that might be able to sneak their way into the School for Field Studies PO Box (SFS allows Mboya to receive his mail via their box, which is nice of them, as Mboya probably doesn't have a box of his own and anything sent general delivery to Nairobi would certainly get lost in the shuffle. Or stolen, I hate to say).
Also, the phone to which he is referring in the above email is an old LG phone I had. I got to upgrade when I went to Africa because the local Cingular guy was very curious to see if their phones would work from Kenya - no one had ever tried! They gave me a "razr" to use, as they couldn't put international calling on my old LG. In the end I got to keep the razr, which worked like a champ throughout rural Kenya (I don't think they wanted it back because it was a bit dusty, but I'm not complaining!) but I never had to turn in the old LG. I thought that it might help Mboya to have a phone for his job hunt. It's much easier than just showing up at a company and asking if they have job openings, plus you can respond to classifieds much easier. I had the LG "unlocked" by a California-based travel company. I guess (and forgive me for my non-technical explanation) most American cell phones are "locked." This means that you can't necessarily take your cell phone to another country and put a SIM card from a local cell agency in your phone and expect it to work. It might, but it might not, because some cell phone companies have "locked" their phones - they've programmed them to work with only SIM cards issued by their own company. STINGY! (this website explains it better)
I sent Mboya my phone right after I heard he lost his job - of course it was LOCKED! He used his head though and gave it to an SFS student to take home and mail from her house. That's what I love about SFS Kenya kids - they'll do stuff like that for you!!! Same with the professors - when my wildlife management professor visited Boston in 2003 I gave him about a dozen gifts for various staff members and he brought them back to Kenya for me! Argh, I'm rambling. Ok, so I got the phone back, did a little internet research, and found a company that would unlock my phone. Then I had to research the company :) Long and short of it, the old LG was unlocked and sent back to Kenya, Mboya got together the money he needed to fetch it, and now it's still giving him trouble. I think the trouble has to do with Safari.com, the Kenyan cell service, and the fact that they are accustomed to Nokias and probably haven't seen too many LG flip phones yet, but I'm sure they'll work it out in the end.
Well that's it from me. Thank you everyone for your donations. You're wonderful!
Allison
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Greetings
Hello
I've created this blog to help my friend Mboya Musau send his sister, Mumbua, to school.
I met Mboya in 2003 while I was studying abroad in Kenya, and was lucky enough to meet up with him again a year ago when I went back to Kenya on a School for Field Studies organized reunion. In the span of three years the Internet has become much more accessible for SFS employees, so this time around, Mboya promised to keep in touch.
It's really wonderful to be able to email my friends in Kenya on a regular basis, and receiving current news from them is amazing, considering when I did hear from them by mail, their letters would take a month or more to reach me.
I am particularly glad that email has become our main form of communication because Mboya lost his job last winter, shortly after I returned to the US. His email to me follows:
I felt terrible that this happened to Mboya with little warning - he wasn't fired for bad job performance, he was simply let go because SFS Kenya cannot afford to keep two camps operational at once. Since the 2003 state department travel warning has been in place, the admission rate to SFS Kenya dropped about 50%. Without students paying to go to Kenya, staff cuts had to be made. For whatever reason, despite over a decade with SFS, Mboya was let go. In a way, I felt indirectly responsible for this. I am a Smith College alumna, and Smith is one of several schools that is affiliated with SFS, yet won't let their students attend the Kenya program because it is "too dangerous," something which makes me laugh every time the administration explains why they still aren't letting students go (for those of you who have been to SFS Kenya, you know how the program goes above and beyond to keep you safe....almost too safe!). What if one Smith student's attendance pays Mboya's entire salary? Smith is a women's college, and what if, indirectly, the policies of one institution are preventing a young woman from attending school? My fellow alumnae would be outraged by this, as was I, so I decided to take action.
I called upon my parents and my friends to raise the Ksh 12,000, approximately US$165. I paid that per month in student loan payments, and to think that that was the price of three months of Kenyan school fees nearly unbelievable to me. To not help out would have been simply irresponsible. I sent Mboya $175 a few days later, and he was extremely grateful:
Hi,guess what? i finally suceeded,and all that is cause you gave me all the details that was needed,they did not have other problematic acquires,things went smooth,only ther rate was not that good,the exchange rate was KSH 67 per $US,Then ihad one question cause i also tried to ask was,how much more or extra $US you had sent apart from $175 and the answer was $4 which was ok with me, only that i just wanted to conform,
The only option on my side is soo much appreciate from you and to the rest not forgetting your family for gathering together and making up one maid to assit me,you have made my live tobe alittle better when am going through the hardship of it,Only my wishes are,may God bless you sooooo much,and give us straith to keep on in terms of communication,anyway you cant imagine who much you have done for me,and have no wards to explain the situation,for now i say award of bye, and we shall talk more,RAFIKI YAKO MBOYA
I was hopeful that Mboya would find a job soon after that, but unfortunately in a country where the unemployment rate hovers around 40% he has had not luck as of yet. In September, it was school fee time again. This time around, I set up a paypal account to receive payments for the school fund, and then set up an ING savings account in Mboya's name to handle any overflow that comes into the paypal account. Then I recruited a bunch of friends to throw in some cash (I feel slightly vulture-like doing this!) and we raised nearly $300. I sent Mboya $250 and banked $50 for the next semester. Again his thanks was prolific:
I've created this blog to help my friend Mboya Musau send his sister, Mumbua, to school.
I met Mboya in 2003 while I was studying abroad in Kenya, and was lucky enough to meet up with him again a year ago when I went back to Kenya on a School for Field Studies organized reunion. In the span of three years the Internet has become much more accessible for SFS employees, so this time around, Mboya promised to keep in touch.
It's really wonderful to be able to email my friends in Kenya on a regular basis, and receiving current news from them is amazing, considering when I did hear from them by mail, their letters would take a month or more to reach me.
I am particularly glad that email has become our main form of communication because Mboya lost his job last winter, shortly after I returned to the US. His email to me follows:
| Joseph Mboya Musau |
| show details | 4/17/06 |
Hi allison Thanks a lot for your reply. Anyway that’s what happened and am looking forward to do something especially looking for a job. Maraka is not on that position of helping me with a job cause I also talked to him about it, but I am trying my level best. The same thing happened to Otieno, Damaris, Mulinge the mechanic, so they are busy looking around to do something. To surprise you my mum was shocked to hear that I was not working any more cause they really depend on me neither of them are working , nor my brother, they are only farmers but the problem is the rain season cause it has been long time since we got rain, that’s why you saw it’s very dry in Kenya and animals dying. The truth remains that they are really wondering how we can assist my little sister who is now 13 years now and she is in high school. It’s second year for her, so she still has two more years to complete high school whereby every term I used to pay 12,000/= per three months which calculates per year Ksh 36,000. So that’s why am worried about her cause now I am jobless although I am trying to have one. If you want to write me please use the same address cause I do not have a new one, and I can collect my letters from N.P.S. Please give my high fives to Mellisa and Rachael and tell them I will keep in touch actually either Mellisa or Rachael wrote me an email, but I will talk to them soon. Hope you guys you can rent me your assistances. Thanks a lot and we shall always pray for the betterness of the future. Yours faithfully Rafiki Mboya |
I felt terrible that this happened to Mboya with little warning - he wasn't fired for bad job performance, he was simply let go because SFS Kenya cannot afford to keep two camps operational at once. Since the 2003 state department travel warning has been in place, the admission rate to SFS Kenya dropped about 50%. Without students paying to go to Kenya, staff cuts had to be made. For whatever reason, despite over a decade with SFS, Mboya was let go. In a way, I felt indirectly responsible for this. I am a Smith College alumna, and Smith is one of several schools that is affiliated with SFS, yet won't let their students attend the Kenya program because it is "too dangerous," something which makes me laugh every time the administration explains why they still aren't letting students go (for those of you who have been to SFS Kenya, you know how the program goes above and beyond to keep you safe....almost too safe!). What if one Smith student's attendance pays Mboya's entire salary? Smith is a women's college, and what if, indirectly, the policies of one institution are preventing a young woman from attending school? My fellow alumnae would be outraged by this, as was I, so I decided to take action.
I called upon my parents and my friends to raise the Ksh 12,000, approximately US$165. I paid that per month in student loan payments, and to think that that was the price of three months of Kenyan school fees nearly unbelievable to me. To not help out would have been simply irresponsible. I sent Mboya $175 a few days later, and he was extremely grateful:
| ||||||||||
| Joseph Mboya Musau |
| show details | 4/26/06 | ||||||
Reply to all
ForwardThe only option on my side is soo much appreciate from you and to the rest not forgetting your family for gathering together and making up one maid to assit me,you have made my live tobe alittle better when am going through the hardship of it,Only my wishes are,may God bless you sooooo much,and give us straith to keep on in terms of communication,anyway you cant imagine who much you have done for me,and have no wards to explain the situation,for now i say award of bye, and we shall talk more,RAFIKI YAKO MBOYA
I was hopeful that Mboya would find a job soon after that, but unfortunately in a country where the unemployment rate hovers around 40% he has had not luck as of yet. In September, it was school fee time again. This time around, I set up a paypal account to receive payments for the school fund, and then set up an ING savings account in Mboya's name to handle any overflow that comes into the paypal account. Then I recruited a bunch of friends to throw in some cash (I feel slightly vulture-like doing this!) and we raised nearly $300. I sent Mboya $250 and banked $50 for the next semester. Again his thanks was prolific:
| Joseph Mboya Musau |
| show details | 9/25/06 |
Hi allison,
good news! you cant imagine l went through and received the cash, actually it was no a hardship since i applyed everything in orders all the details you had given to me.
Otherwise i will be home for at list one day so that i can pay for the fee and i think i will settle all the bills for this semester till December.thanks sooo much. please tell all your friends how much i appreciate and hope same day we shall see each other since i know only mountains never meet , but humans you never know!!!
Allison i really have not much news, only that in Kenya we are expecting for the short rains seasons to begin in late october through mind-December,right now people are preparing for the planting season,to make sure the try weeds is cleared and burned , cause we allso believe is part of manure which is good for soil and it keeps it fertile for the germination of the plants.
I had a question ? How do you want to learn the swahili? For me i had suggestion of you sending same wards in English then i can translate in swahili!! not unless you have other option!!!!
Samething i didn't understand! what do you mean your friends are so happy that they could do samething good for same one else? Do they want may be to educate more kids or students who are not able to pay for their schools or collages?or orphanes, please clarify to me!
Well am not still ,not the\at good in typing i can take the whole day, although am better than before , i will still keep talking to you any other time,any time .
Please if you send anything, think on the duties for the postage fee if you can, otherwise the end-up by charging so much at the post office,but i think with the stationery's are not that bad; but with electronics like the phone etc.hope it will be OK !cause i can't want to use it, and i really miss it pleeeeeeease.Anyways am not pushing anything just take your time.
wish you wonderful schooling and hope you can also have fun, do you have terms off from school? please give my best to Sister Amy,your boyfriend, Reachel and Melissa,Elizabeth and the rest;Tell them i miss to see them, hopefully pretty soooon than later for God will.
Thanks and please take care also don't fall to keep in touch. God bless you. by 4 now
Now it is January, which means that school starts in Kenya in a few days, and once again, Mboya is in need of school fees for his sister Mumbua. I'm serious when I say that I feel like a vulture asking people for money, but if you donate even $1 it will help a great deal. Of course $5 goes even further ;)
In the side margin, I have set up a paypal link. I know that for most of you (and I include myself) it's a little sketchy sending money to a paypal account because paypal is linked to a personal bank account and could technically be going into my pocket - I want to assure you that this is not the case at all, and if you feel like you need to email Mboya to confirm this fact, please email me so I can give you his address. I've included emails from him on this post to reassure the fact that I am indeed sending him money for his sister's school fees! I've even had to answer Homeland Security's questions about sending money to Kenya on a regular basis, so I'm sure you could contact them as I probably have a file somewhere! I just want to let anyone who may not know me personally, that this money is going directly to Mboya (once the Bank of Kenya has taken their cut, about $4) not to me. If would feel more comfortable sending your donation directly to Mboya, you can email me for details about how to do this - sending a Money Gram isn't the most convenient process in the world so I figured it was easier to have one person gathering the donations and sending them over, as this also eliminates the number of fees paid to Money Gram and the Bank of Kenya, but I completely understand if you want to send the money yourself.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I have been so touched by all the people who've been involved with this project thus far. It amazes me that most of the people who have donated money in the past have never met Mboya, or even been to Kenya. That generosity has encouraged me to reach out even further. Mboya needs the school fees by January 5th - I know it's very short notice, but we pulled it off last time - let's do it again!
Thank YOU!
Allison
(paypal link on your right!)
Now it is January, which means that school starts in Kenya in a few days, and once again, Mboya is in need of school fees for his sister Mumbua. I'm serious when I say that I feel like a vulture asking people for money, but if you donate even $1 it will help a great deal. Of course $5 goes even further ;)
In the side margin, I have set up a paypal link. I know that for most of you (and I include myself) it's a little sketchy sending money to a paypal account because paypal is linked to a personal bank account and could technically be going into my pocket - I want to assure you that this is not the case at all, and if you feel like you need to email Mboya to confirm this fact, please email me so I can give you his address. I've included emails from him on this post to reassure the fact that I am indeed sending him money for his sister's school fees! I've even had to answer Homeland Security's questions about sending money to Kenya on a regular basis, so I'm sure you could contact them as I probably have a file somewhere! I just want to let anyone who may not know me personally, that this money is going directly to Mboya (once the Bank of Kenya has taken their cut, about $4) not to me. If would feel more comfortable sending your donation directly to Mboya, you can email me for details about how to do this - sending a Money Gram isn't the most convenient process in the world so I figured it was easier to have one person gathering the donations and sending them over, as this also eliminates the number of fees paid to Money Gram and the Bank of Kenya, but I completely understand if you want to send the money yourself.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I have been so touched by all the people who've been involved with this project thus far. It amazes me that most of the people who have donated money in the past have never met Mboya, or even been to Kenya. That generosity has encouraged me to reach out even further. Mboya needs the school fees by January 5th - I know it's very short notice, but we pulled it off last time - let's do it again!
Thank YOU!
Allison
(paypal link on your right!)
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